[X] My Assistant

[paws2sky]

one thing just came to mind. what about people that want to play previous versions?

under a subscription model, will they be out in the cold when a new version comes around?

Most likely.

-paws

[Browncoatone]

functionally similar to an encyclopedia

Because Encyclopædia Britannica doesn't publish an online subscription service or anything.

[Necro Sanct]

one thing just came to mind. what about people that want to play previous versions?

under a subscription model, will they be out in the cold when a new version comes around?

Say if a genie snapped it's fingers right now and all the printed books in existence disappeared while every company to release a gaming product converted to a digitally encrypted hacker-proof subscription system. It would depend on the company and what they own for the specific game system. Some would have their whole catalog up while others would only have their own releases for the editions they offer. Perhaps over time companies that have worked on the same system would band together to offer their customers all the material for a system. Those companies that would not go about that model would only give customers the option to require multiple subscriptions to have all the cross material.

Now in the real world we have no such thing to make that happen. That leaves us with stopping production of print, which I do not see happening, for a similar digital model. Books are slowly phasing out but I do not see them ever being truly replaced. Newspapers on the other hand are a completely different thing and most likely it will not be long before those might disappear altogether with how some of them are even shutting down outright.

SpasticTeapot points out that they are "reference materials". They are hobby books plain and simple. Most printed reference material is usually something you pay an extreme price for to actually increase your own personal monetary gains beyond that cost. One of my biggest issues of these "reference materials" is the price point of them. Going over a list for printed hardcover material always confuses me from a quick glance at the price. I do not have the hard numbers behind all the factors so I give the publisher some sort of benefit of a doubt there. Most hardcover releases end up being anywhere from $0.10 to $0.20 per page with the average per page being $0.19. WotC has $0.11 (Player's Handbook) to $0.19 (Martial Power, Arcane Power, Manual of the Planes, FRPG, and Dungeon Delve). Catalyst has $0.10 (4th Rulebook) to $0.20 (Augmentation). Those numbers are all over the place for the various types of books that a company puts out and makes the reasoning for the costs even more befuddling.

Anyway enough of the venting about per page pricing. I enjoy nice artwork and all the fancy layout of most hardcover books like the next person. I wish there was a cheaper stripped down version similar to the Dummy line of books. At the end of the day it is the rules that matter to me as a customer especially in today's crap economy. Less focus on the extra flash for the books would open up more options for publishers in the digital realm. A small subscription fee or perhaps a per release code for web module unlocks added onto the book cost for extra stuff beyond the book like npc databases, adventures, stories, artwork, maps, and so forth would be nice. It would possibly become easier and cheaper for a company to mass produce this extra material to expand the world we play in while keeping people actively on staff. It might even mean that due to the lower timeframe involved, with such things as slaving behind book publishing software/proofreading for a few months to get everything laid out properly for just 1 release, books could be released more often. Since the price would be lower it could even bring more people into the community as they would not be on the fence as to if they want to pay $30 to $40 for one book that sees limited use.

[Chrysalis]

Most reference sites are subscription only. Everything from dictionaries to journals.

[deek]

I think the scary thing for some of these publishers is that once they get to a point where they offer a stripped-down version of a PDF, they are then going up against anyone else out there that can put out a solid ruleset. They no longer are offering the bound hardcopies that make us think they are "better" or more official. Obviously there is still IP for the setting and the like, but the rules are fair game.

Get someone out there with a better ruleset and it doesn't take long before you trade one PDF for another...

[Freejack]

I subscribe to the O'Reilly Safari web site. It's about $400 a year for access to all their and several other publishers' books electronically. I started when it was $325 and they had a bookshelf model (30 slots, books take 1/2, 1, or 2 slots, can't remove a book for 30 days). Since I purchased about $600 in computer books a year, I figured it was a good value and it was. Since I was a consultant, I had access to anything I needed to admin servers and paid extra for 30 slots so I'd have access to programming or more fuzzy texts (like Advanced Unix Programming vs a reference book like PHP Cookbook).

It's going up in price again (about $43 a month) to the point that it's not worth continuing (the model is changing to unlimited access to all books). They've reached the price point where the cost of keeping up on my book collection is about the same as the subscription cost and I'd rather have the dead tree copy. Plus my computer books are still pretty current so it won't be a big hit to the pocketbook to pick up the books I still want.

But I liked it because I could find things a lot quicker than on PDF (much better search engine). What I'd really like is a similar index as in Microsoft help stuff. An index but also the ability to index the entire PDF. It'd make significantly easier and quicker to find stuff. Even on my 2 Gig ram Mac, it's lightning slow to search for things.

Carl

[ludomastro]

The company I work for has opted for a system that allows us to search pretty much every engineering or inspection standard in existance - not just the current versions but all previous ones as well.

If a game company came out with a similar service, I would use it in a heartbeat.

[SpasticTeapot]

Because Encyclopædia Britannica doesn't publish an online subscription service or anything.

Yes. It's continually updated. Most books aren't.

[Wesley Street]

Plus it's a 200-year old institution with a staff of 100 and 4,000 regular contributors.

I could see this being plausible for WotC as they're the 800-pound gorilla of the industry, owned by the second largest toymaker in the world. As for everyone else? It's a niche. The only way I could see a Netflix-style market working for everyone would be if every RPG publisher signed on to the project and with your $25/month membership fee you had access to every and any RPG book you wanted. Netflix only works because it's hard to find DVDs they don't carry (other than porn, obviously).

[Browncoatone]

But this is fiction, it's much easier to write than an encyclopedia.

Computer technology is a big equalizer in things like this. My father-in-law is a lawyer. He once told me about the hard days when he first started his private practice how the big law firms could basically bury a small practice in paperwork rather than go to trial because they owned a computer. Back then there were only mainframe systems and only big companies could afford them. So the big company would slam the small practice in court with motion after motion putting its word processing software to devastating and decisive use while the small practice had to respond with typing each counter-motion out manually each time.

Then the game changed. The personal computer became available and the small practice could throw motions almost as fast as the big boys.

Once you remove the need for physical publication the cost of producing the material goes down. Then add the ability to profit from offering supporting material that would rarely if ever make it as published material and you create a situation where the authors of the material can keep busy making weekly additions to the product without requiring the customer to purchase 3+ manuals at $40+ a piece just to play. Makes it easier to sample the game.

Really what I'm suggesting is the 'RPG' will stop being a 'book' and become a combination of electronic core documents coupled with a weekly or bi-monthly electronic magazine that will introduce extra material and the ability to search those archives for the material you need at the moment. This will transform the RPG industry from the 'movie' model, where the authors spend a year producing, publishing and distributing a physical book in hopes that enough people will buy it at $40+ to recoup the costs of production and maybe see a bit of profit, to the 'TV' model, where the authors keep working all year adding little bits to the grand tapestry of the game while profiting from subscriptions for access to their work.

That, or everyone better get used to World of Warcraft.

[Adarael]

But this is fiction, it's much easier to write than an encyclopedia.

You can't hear it, but I laughed myself hoarse here.

Perhaps what you mean to say is that fiction is usually less time-consuming to research than an encyclopedia? It sure as shit isn't easier, especially if you want it to be of decent quality, internally consistant, and fun to read as well.

If that's not what you mean, you are just plain mistaken.

[Browncoatone]

No, I mean that making shit up is a hell of alot easier than having to research and footnote the facts.

"The Ratman army conquered the Free City of Dorkiness in the 3rd year of the Reign of Klondas the 2nd."

See how easy that was?

[hyzmarca]

I'm sorry, but that's just impossible.

Everyone knows that the Miragian Ratpeople where brought to near-extinction by Klondas I's ethnic cleansing campaigns. According to Abjorned Tales Volume III page 194, the surviving Ratman population numbered around 7000. Even with Ratman breeding rates, that isn't enough time to build an army capable of handling Dorkiness's million-man-strong legion of Battlewizards.

[Byron]

Quickly glancing at the first post or two I'm just going to say that to be honest, who here actually thinks their not going to rescind this policy within a year?

[Heath Robinson]

<snip/>

The great thing about this model? The ability to get fluff retconned! It'll be like the supreme soviet issuing their monthly historybook revisions, except nobody will know it's happening except the people who care enough to make a big stink about it.

Excuse my cynicism, I am actually rather in favour of moving to electronic distribution. I just feel that unwavering optimism takes us places we're best not going.

[Chrysalis]

Quickly glancing at the first post or two I'm just going to say that to be honest, who here actually thinks their not going to rescind this policy within a year?

I don't think they will rescind their policy within a year, or when the fandom forgets about heir being a service retracted. To be honest, all I can think of is "Pride before the fall" and my own personal continuation "too much pride to ask for a hand." Favourite sin of mine - pride.

[Browncoatone]

Excuse my cynicism, I am actually rather in favour of moving to electronic distribution. I just feel that unwavering optimism takes us places we're best not going.

I didn't mean that everyone would be happy about it, or that the full potential of such an idea will be realized, only that the idea of selling a game by selling a book idea will not persist in a 21st century world.

[hobgoblin]

http://blip.tv/file/1996369

now im wondering how to apply the concept of drm as platform lockin into a SR game. i can actually see rival content corps supplying cracks for their competitions platform, using it as a marketing tool. "see, theirs can be broken! by switching to us, your content is safe, however!"...

hmm, runner teams hitting the company servers developing the latest drm systems, so as to plant a back door developed by a rival corp?

[Mäx]

Once the cost of distribution is cut and the level of piracy reduced to nearly nothing the price of the material will be considerably lower while the producers of the material will see substantially more profit.

Never expected to see this kind of naive thinkink in a shadowrun forum, monopoly systems like that wuold raise the price trought the roof.
Only reason netflixs is that cheap is the fact that it has to compete with online piracy.

[deek]

Never expected to see this kind of naive thinkink in a shadowrun forum, monopoly systems like that would raise the price through the roof.
Only reason netflixs is that cheap is the fact that it has to compete with online piracy.

Netflix competes with Blockbuster, brick and mortar video rental and On Demand...I think piracy factors into the cost, but its not a direct competitor.

There are only a handful of true monopolies and only two I can think of off the top of my head: mouse traps and pinball machines.

So, I do agree once distribution costs are cut, then the price drops considerably and the hassle to get pirated copies is not worth just buying the content. The problem with RPGs, is demand. There's just not enough to create the huge volume that makes these price models workable (e.g. Walmart, iTunes).

I'll venture to say that if the price of a hardback RPG book were to be half the cost it is today, you would not see the volume of sales grow significantly. I could be wrong, but I don't see more people getting into table-top gaming just because the books are cheaper. The best a company could hope for would be more existing players buy the book (online or hardcopy) rather than most groups sharing the content. I've been in very few groups that everyone had a ton of books and most with at least half the players having none.

So, the real question would be, is there a price point, online or hardcopy, that would entice those players to actually buy a book. If not, then it really doesn't matter cause you will be selling about the same books regardless of price.

[paws2sky]

So, the real question would be, is there a price point, online or hardcopy, that would entice those players to actually buy a book. If not, then it really doesn't matter cause you will be selling about the same books regardless of price.

I can answer that, for me at least.

$30 is the most I'll pay for a new hard copy book. I don't know why, but when I see a book above that price, I tend to just automatically put it back on the shelf. The only reason I own the SR4 core books is that I get a rather nice discount at my FLGS and I frequent Half Priced Books religiously.

For regular books in PDF form, I have to admit I'm not a huge fan. The printed layout doesn't really work well for on-screen reading - I just can't sit down with a PDF and absorb the information like I can a book. The main reason to get them is to search for keywords. As a general rule, if I see a PDF priced for much more than half of the printed cost, I won't consider buying it.

Now, I do like the $4-ish price tag on the mini-PDFs like Digital Grimoire. I would like them to be a bit longer - a solid 20 pages of actual content would be very nice. Also, that would put it on par with the magazines I occasionally buy.

-paws

[deek]

Yeah, having some shorter, low price (~$5 range) mini-PDFs are appealing, but then they'd really need to produce more of those and more frequently. Volume goes up, quality goes down because you are producing more in less time. But it would work.

I guess I am looking at my own gaming table and the GM (in this case, me) has bought 6 books and have PDFs for all of those plus 3 more. I share all of them with my players and I think one or two other people have bought a hardcopy core book. Now even if the PDFs were only a dollar, I have a hard time thinking anyone but me is going to buy it.

I used to not be a fan of PDF books...but I read so much at work on my computer screen, that its not even a second thought reading on-screen. Laptops are cheap, so if I need a more comfy chair to settle down it, that's easily resolved. But, my computer chair is pretty comfy too...

[Lordmalachdrim]

Personally I really dislike PDFs since they're a pain to read though (for me at least) and they're slow to find what you want once you know the book fairly well. As for their usefulness at the table...well they're of no use to players at my games since I don't allow laptops at the table (gamers have a horrid habit of doing everything but paying attention when they have computer access).

As for WoTC stopping sale of PDFs well it sucks for anyone who's bought a e-book from any of the affected companies and even more for anyone who's a fan of an out-of-print game (Alternity, Gama World, AD&D, etc.) since given their prior actions regarding these items I doubt they'd make them available on their site if they do sell them in-house.

[Zenfar]

When I heard about WotC dropping PDFs I decided to go out and buy PDFs from other companies. That and I use pen and paper RPGs to spark my imagination for what could be done in computer RPGs, with 4th edition D&D it seems like a computer RPG in print, more like a computer RPG design document than an actual game.

[Wesley Street]

Yeah, having some shorter, low price (~$5 range) mini-PDFs are appealing, but then they'd really need to produce more of those and more frequently. Volume goes up, quality goes down because you are producing more in less time. But it would work.

I strongly agree with this in theory but in the case of CGL or Crafty Games, which are very small shops, there are only so many editors to go around. But like I said, I strongly agree and it seems to be the system that Crafty Games has set up for Spycraft 2.0. The core rulebook and World on Fire setting book are dead tree, everything else is a $3 mini-PDF supplement (new weapons, new factions, new player classes, etc).

In my land of unicorns and puppies I'd love to see a Shadowrun 10 page mini-PDF released every other month and have it cover... something in the Shadowrun world. It wouldn't have to be much. Say the island of Sri Lanka, a space station, or a few new weapons or vehicles. Or critters or sample NPCs. Or rules for starting a rock band a la Shadowbeat.